


H.A.I.R

by Jacque_le_Prince



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Androgyny, Asian-American Character, Black Character(s), Female Character of Color, Female Characters, Hair, Other, POV First Person, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 08:25:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2461481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacque_le_Prince/pseuds/Jacque_le_Prince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I just want to be free, I just want to be me. And I want lots of friends that invite me to their parties. Don't wanna change, and I don't wanna be ashamed. I'm the spirit of my hair, it's all the glory that I bare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	H.A.I.R

[I am  _not_  my hair]

Whenever I'm dressed cool

My parents put up a fight

[I am  _not_  my hair]

And if I'm hot shot

Mom will comb my hair at night

[I am  _not_  my hair]

And in the morning

I'm short of my identity

[I am  _not_  my hair]

I scream Mom and Dad

Why can't I be who I wanna be?

To be

[I am  _not_  my hair]

I just wanna be myself

And I want you to love me for who I am

I just wanna be myself

And I want you to know, I am not my hair

* * *

Chocolate silky smooth waves cascaded down my back like water. It had always been that way since the day I could put my feet to the ground and walk.

While other girls had to twist their charcoal black hair into meager braids, I could always run about with my hair as loose as my summer dress in the dew peppered breeze.

Every night after my mother massaged my waves with natural oils, I would always stay and watch as she tended to her own hair. I never understood the long process of all the foreign products she would put into her short, corse cocoa brown hair. Why did she not do the same with my hair? Why did she sometimes have to leave for hours to wash her hair when she could just wash mine in the bath? I also wondered why my mother never enjoyed doing her own hair. Whenever she entwined her oiled fingers into my waves, she would gasp boasts about how beautiful it was, the sheen in the light, the texture against her hands, the way the waves crimped around her fingers. She loved it so much. She was loving a part of me, but it didn't feel like she loved anything that was a part of me.

Other people beside my mother had always praised my hair.

"Oh! What gorgeous hair your daughter has!"

"Oh my god! Your hair is so pretty!"

"Your hair is beautiful!"

Some people were classmates of mine that had come and gone with the passing years of childhood. Some of them were complete strangers, infusing me with strained uncomfortable feelings to dwell within my stomach as they reached out to pet my head and neck as if I were some rare breed cat. However, despite the unwanted touches from unknown hands, I was expected to take it all as praise.

The praise I could never understood as a compliment, though, was when people would say my hair was long. I didn't hear long as being a beauty standard. I simply heard it as a size, but my mother would always tell me to say "Thank you." in return.

I would soon grow to miss the seemingly endless shower of compliments when the years of adolescence approached.

The beauty standards rose for the girls around me and soon praise became commands declaring what I should do to improve my appearance. Demands ranging from putting false hairs to bleaching my tips pierced through my being like arrows from the bows of the critical. However, one of the worst requests I would get would be from my own family: "You should get your hair done."

A common preteen like me didn't understand that regular grooming and braiding my hair into a simple ponytail just wasn't good enough for the public's standards.

So when I finally stepped into the stuffy salon filled with nauseating fumes, I knew then, I was selling my soul to the Devil.

I left that day with the hair of an elegant Geisha girl. My chocolate brown waves had been pressed by iron plates into silky straight strands that flew in the wind like tissue.

I fell into the same cycle of receiving shower upon showers of compliments, this time, with more uninhibited question of if I was truly black or not. My skin already being a golden honey brown, this often disrupted my days as random bystanders would not only touch my hair, but ask what race I could have been mixed with if any.

And like that same cycle, the second stage fell into play when I entered high school. A never-ending onslaught of criticism rained down on me. This time, the stakes were higher. The girls wanted me to get extensions, get curls, wear bangs, and so much more. However, these years became tougher on me because the pressure to be feminine was not an option for me.

I could handle my peers wanting me to act more ladylike back when I was in junior high and still a girl, but in high school, I was only half the woman I used to be.

* * *

"Mama, I'm androgynous."

* * *

I don't remember much after the harsh words vomited onto me. All I remember was waking up on the hardwood floors of our living room with the crimson remains of my bloody nose dried up on the once shiny floor. The next thing that hit me was that I was alone. The third thing was that I was given a time.

" _….Keisha, you had better be gone by the time I get back._ "

Somehow, my mother's words coming back to me didn't phase me. Instead, my feet calmly carried me into the bathroom. There, I opened up the mirror to find a comb, brush and a pair of scissors.

My mother had always commented on how my hair flowed behind me like angel wings for the Lord to take me, but she could only say that because she only saw my hair. She never felt what it was like to have it. I felt my hair as a weight, a weight dragging me down into the watery depths of death.

* * *

3 years later:

An asian woman with medium length velvet red hair walked into the bar. She wore a black band T-shirt and dark rouge jeans on her plump body.

The bartender immediately looked up at the sound of the bell "Josie!" he said "How's my girl doing?"

The woman took a seat before the youthful blond bartender "As good as I'll ever be," she said with a slight smile.

"Still beat from working on that cover shoot?" the man asked "How about I treat you to your favorite, then?"

Josie sighed happily "You know me well."

When the blond bartender turned to prepare her drink, Josie noticed she was one seat away from an interesting individual.

They were a medium built black adult with ample muscle tone. Adorning their body was a black vest with a red T-shirt underneath and dark blue jeans. Their skin was a golden honey color, but what caught Josie's attention the most was their boy-styled cut chocolate brown hair revealing a purple androgynous symbol earring.

"Hey," Josie said.

The adult turned and regarded Josie with her cocoa brown eyes.

"I really like your hair," she said.

The adult smiled "Thank you," they said.

Josie then turned to the bartender "Hey Cal, would you mind also getting a drink for…?"

"Quinn," answered the black adult. A warm smile spread on their pink lips "I'm Quinn."

* * *

I've had enough, this is my prayer

That I'll die living just as free as my hair

I've had enough, this is my prayer

That I'll die living just as free as my hair

I've had enough, I'm not a freak

I just keep fighting to stay cool on the streets

I've had enough, enough, enough

And this is my prayer, I swear

I'm as free as my hair

I'm a free as my hair

I am  _not_  my hair

I am  _not_  my hair

* * *

Original lyrics sung by Lady GaGa "Hair", edits made by me.


End file.
